Counting Down To The Day When Apple Kills 'Classic'

By TMO Staff

Oct 2nd, 2001 5:00 PM EDT

Of all the sentimental
errors which reign and rage in this incomparable republic, the worst, I often
suspect, is that which confuses the functions of criticism, whether aesthetic,
political or social, with the function of reform.... Such men are never
popular. The way to please is to proclaim in a confident manner. This is what
is called building up. This is constructive criticism.

H. L. Mencken,Prejudices

Youire always wrong! You
said that "Krush Groove" was gonna be a hit!

Ben Affleck,
"Dogma"

If you are like me and the thousands of lucky people whoive already gotten
the OS X 10.1 upgrade installed onto their happy Macs, then you will understand
me when I say that I am currently in computing
beatitude.

As I peck away at my keyboard to bring you these feeble musings, I am using Word:
Mac 2001 to craft my thoughts. Word is running in OS Xis "Classic"
compatibility mode, which allows me to run OS 9 apps without leaving the psychologically
and aesthetically pleasing Aqua environment. To be honest, most of my work can
only be done in Classic: Dreamweaver, Word, Excel, Entourage, Photoshop, SoundJam
(iTunes canit convert MP3s to AIFF so I can burn audio CDs for easy listening
in my truck -- note: a reader just told me that it can. Good!), Final Cut Pro, Quark Xpress and Unreal Tournament.

While running these Classic apps, I had a stray thought: what if Apple
pulls the plug on Classic, leaving us with nothing but OS X to run our software?
Would Apple do such a thing? Should Apple do such a thing?

There are many reasons why Apple should kill Classic, as well as an equal number
of reasons why it should stay a main feature of OS X. Both arguments can be summed
up with the following.

Kill Classic, because getting rid of it right now would force developers
to write for OS X. Many developers are either dragging their feet or are
silently protesting OS X. There are people in the developer community who
see OS X as a step backwards from the Macintosh experience that we know and
love. How soon do we forget that it wasnit just Apple alumni Jef
Raskin and Bruce
"Tog" Tognazzini who were poo-pooing OS X when it first reared
its Aqua head, but many of us stepped out of the woodwork to give our thumbs
down -- and Iim sure that some of those comments, private or public, came
from Mac developers. Can we safely say that all of those people have "seen
the light," even if they and their companies have ostensibly pinched
their noses and carrried on with OS X development? Maybe something as drastic
as killing Classic would bring them over. Grow or go, I always say.

Donit kill Classic, because getting rid of it right now would kill Apple.
Killing Classic on Oct. 3 would be the dumbest move Apple ever made (okay,
okay, the "hockey-puck" mouse rates a little bit higher). Whereis
the OS X software, after all? iNuff said.

But the death of Classic can only happen at a certain point in time. When is
that certain point in time? I donit know. But I do know that even when apps
like Microsoft Office and the Adobe family of products hit the shelves in all
their Aquafied glory, we still will only be approaching the halfway mark at
best ("midnight," in Steveis parlance), in terms of having a full
complement of basic software that wonit need Classic to run.

Currently, Apple says that the OS X transition is right on schedule, but arenit they
supposed to say that? We donit expect Apple reps to whine publicly about what is really happening. Iid like to know the story behind the headline.
Meanwhile, people like me are using Classic to get work done, while people like
some of my friends can truthfully say that they never launch Classic. I imagine
that for most of us, my friends and I exist on the extremes of a continuum while
your Classic usage exists in those gray areas in between my total dependence
on Classic and my friendsi freedom from legacy-coded apps.

My two arguments above look at Classicis place in the scheme of things Mac
OS X. Those arguments are from emotional foundations. But, in truth, there are
two other ways to look at this, both from more logical premises.

Apple could position Classic as a permanent feature of OS X, always providing
support for applications much older than the Carbonized versions upon which the
success of OS X depends. This provides a good selling point for
those people who will still be clinging to their Quadrais and LCis even in
the future. In one way, it will make Apple look really good if the company
vows to continue making the transition to OS X a smooth, seamless and painless
one. This would undoubtedly necessitate more tweaks and updates to OS 9 beyond
the current 9.2.1 version. (Sidenote: This reminds me of college calculus
in which we studied the definition of integrals by looking at the concept
of decresing a decimal number by fractional increments. Our totals approached
infinity with the increments, however, never getting a difference that reached
zero. Extrapolating, Apple could make 9.x updates forever without reaching
10.0. I have no idea what this has to do with OS X and Classic. But, I digress...
big time.)

The bottom line is that if Apple keeps Classic, then they will have to continue
developing for and improving upon Classic, for when OS X changes drastically,
so will Classic have to. Furthermore, if Classic stays around, this will leave
the temptation for developers to continue tweaking and upgrading the Classic
versions of their software. This would prevent total transition to OS X.

Classic will have to go the way of the dodo sooner or later. The rumors
of Classicis immortality have been greatly exaggerated. In the scheme
of things, Classic is only a set of training wheels for the Mac-using masses.
Per my above comment, to allow Classic to exist would be to leave an incentive
for developers to merely tweak their Classic apps and drag their feet deeper
on their OS X implementations. So, go it must.

I could be making much ado about nothing, but it is worth considering. Unlike
my friends, I canit stay out of Classic. There are instances where I have both
a Classic version and an OS X version of an application, and when pressed, I
will launched the Classic version. Why? Oh, many reasons. For example, iTunes
for OS X crashes on me (many times, when I shut down or restart OS X, iTunes
launches. Go figure). So, itis easier for me to launch the Classic version,
but then, my music jumps, skips and pauses whenever I do something as simple
as move my cursor over the Dock. (Itis ironic that I chose an Apple app as reason
for not switching totally to OS X. Another digression...)

My best suggestion is this: live as though Classic is living on borrowed time.
This translates into 1) start using available beta OS X versions of your favorite
apps 2) look for OS X substitutes for your favorite apps 3) learn to live without
your favorite apps and features. 3) is hard to do, and I hope will prove to
be unnecessary. Nevertheless, X is the future of the Mac platform, and the future
is now.

OS X 10.1 is proof that we should start making some closure to our love affairs
with Classic and all that it entails. We used to laugh at the belief that Windows
was good enough for the average person to use. Today, we are entering a
similar phase with OS X. Itis good enough. And the training wheels will be falling off soon.

Rodney O. Lain has bad luck. It seems that everything he does in Classic
just so happens to be those things that a) slows down everything else b) crashes
everything else or c) both a) and b). When he isnit testing the limits
of his Classic environment, he is a regular contributor to The Mac Observer
with his "iBrotha"
column, as well as the occasional editorial.